Big Ideas for Apollo Theater Are Held Up by Internal Squabbles

By TERRY PRISTIN

Published: September 17, 2000

It has been a year since United States Representative Charles B. Rangel agreed -- after a rancorous legal battle -- to step down as chairman of the nonprofit organization that runs the state-owned Apollo Theater and turn over control of the board to Time Warner.

Yet despite the new leadership, the red cloth seats inside the theater remain torn, the dirty brown carpeting is pockmarked with cigarette burns and there is peeling paint on the balustrade and the ceiling. The marquee that is a favorite backdrop for tourists' snapshots is still an eyesore, perhaps even more so now that several nearby storefronts on 125th Street have been spruced up in response to the opening of the new Harlem U.S.A. shopping complex a block away.

And just as before, the Apollo is dark most nights.

Efforts to refurbish the theater, a storied Harlem landmark that helped propel the careers of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, have been slowed by internal squabbling, according to people with direct knowledge of the disputes. But Time Warner executives say they intend to completely refurbish the Apollo next year. The Apollo Theater Foundation, which operates the theater, has raised about $5 million in public and private funds for the renovation, including a $2 million federal grant.

But Time Warner also has much more ambitious plans for the site. With fewer than 1,500 seats, the Apollo can no longer attract top pop music acts. So instead, the company wants to make it part of a major cultural center on 125th Street. The center would stretch from the vacant lot directly west of the Apollo to the Victoria, an abandoned movie theater several doors to the east. The Victoria is also owned by the state.

The idea, said Terry C. Lane, the president of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, is to create a ''Lincoln Center North.'' The empowerment zone, a federal, state and city program, is expected to give the Apollo $250,000 to help develop a strategic plan, Mr. Lane said.

Time Warner officials would not disclose any details of their plans, including estimates of the cost. Charles A. Gargano, the president of the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency that owns the Apollo, said he had yet to meet with the president of Time Warner, Richard D. Parsons, to review the proposal. Mr. Parsons is also chairman of the empowerment zone.

Mr. Gargano said he thought the idea was timely, given the economic health of the city and the state. ''We like to see these type of projects,'' he said. ''Look at Lincoln Center, what it's done for Manhattan.''

Mr. Rangel said there was no question that the money for such a center could be raised. But he said it should not be referred to as Lincoln Center North.

''I don't like that, maybe because Harlem was there before Lincoln Center,'' he said. ''Just because people have not paid as much attention to Harlem, I don't think we should be a satellite.''

C. Virginia Fields, the Manhattan borough president, said she thought the expansion would get widespread support as long as Time Warner seemed to be forging a partnership with the Harlem community rather than forcing its way in. ''There has to be clarity,'' she said. ''It has to be done as a partnership -- as a move forward, an enhancement, an opportunity for expansion, and not as a takeover.''

Company officials acknowledged, however, that the expansion plan would require an enormous fund-raising effort and would have to overcome a number of hurdles.

The current political battle concerns the role of Grace Blake, the executive director of the Apollo Theater Foundation since 1995. Time Warner executives say they intend to replace her, and Mr. Rangel, who has been odds with some Time Warner appointees to the board, agrees, saying that the foundation should be run by someone with a background in business, architecture and real estate. Ms. Blake previously worked in movie production.

Ms. Blake, who is trying to hold on to her job, has the support of Barbara Norris, a central figure in Time Warner's expansion plans, according to Harlem community leaders and others familiar with the politics of the Apollo. Ms. Norris is the president of the local development arm of the Harlem Commonwealth Council, a nonprofit group that owns the vacant lot next to the Apollo.

Ms. Blake declined to be interviewed, and Ms. Norris did not return several telephone calls.

Designed by George Keister, a major early 20th-century theater architect, and completed in 1914, the Apollo was originally a burlesque house for white patrons and was known as Hurtig & Seamon's New Theater.

In the 1930's, leading black entertainers, who were not welcome in most theaters even into the 1950's, began appearing at the Apollo in a variety show format. For the next four decades, every major black performer, from Bessie Smith to Louis Armstrong to Aretha Franklin, played the Apollo.

By the mid-1970's, audiences had dwindled, black performers could earn more elsewhere, and 125th Street had gone into decline. The theater closed in 1976. In the 1980's, Percy E. Sutton, the former Manhattan borough president who owns a chain of radio stations, bought the theater and reopened it, but it was seldom able to attract major stars. Unable to make a go of the theater, Mr. Sutton turned it over to the nonprofit foundation in 1992.

Six years later, Dennis C. Vacco, then the state attorney general, sued the foundation, Mr. Rangel and five other board members. The suit accused them of failing to collect $4.4 million owed to the theater by the Inner City Theater Group, a company controlled by Mr. Sutton, a close ally of Mr. Rangel. The company produces a weekly television variety program, ''It's Showtime at the Apollo.''

Mr. Rangel and Mr. Sutton, who later became a defendant in the lawsuit, denied wrongdoing, and Eliot L. Spitzer, who succeeded Mr. Vacco as attorney general, acknowledged that it would be difficult to prove that as much as $4.4 million was owed the theater. He said that $1 million was a fairer figure, and a settlement, reached last October, required the foundation to come up with that sum from Mr. Sutton, some of his business associates and Time Warner.

Also as part of that settlement, Mr. Rangel was forced to step aside as chairman. He was succeeded by the actor Ossie Davis. Ten new board members were appointed, including Beverly Sills, the chairwoman of Lincoln Center and a member of Time Warner's board.

While the legal battle wore on, the Landmarks Conservancy, a private nonprofit organization, prepared a report for the Apollo Theater documenting the repair work that was needed. Roger Lang, a preservation architect for the Landmarks Conservancy, said the work was to include installing a new roof, cleaning and repointing the terracotta facade, replacing the seats and completely refurbishing the interior. Additional fund-raising would be needed to improve the sound system and the stage lighting, Mr. Lang said. A New York architectural firm, Caples Jefferson, has been chosen by the theater's board for the renovation, Mr. Lang said.

For Councilman Bill Perkins, who represents Harlem, the renovations cannot come too soon. ''At least what we could do is dress up the facade,'' he said. ''It's not like an old leather bag that looks better with age.''

Photos: Time Warner says it wants to make the Apollo Theater part of a cultural center that includes the Victoria, an abandoned movie theater, at right. The Apollo is still dark most nights, despite new leadership. (Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times)(pg. 48); (Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times)(pg. 41)